Hall of fame & injury update

I’ll give you an update on the injury front a bit lower down, but first things first. I have quite a few people to thank for their kindness over the past month. So, without further ado, I hereby enrol all of the following people into the Hall of Fame for either sponsorsing or being nice to me over the past month:

Those sponsoring me over the past month:

David Morton
You shall forever be known to me now as the first person to sponsor me. I don’t think I need to say any more than that, so thank you David!

Michelle Godwin
You are my staple ‘dispenser of sound advice’ at work. But better still – and as your actions reminded me on more than one occasion over this past month - you have provided me with many of my favourite comedy moments at Incisive Media (both accidental and deliberate).

Will Strauss
Will is the inspiration behind my new found fitness regime although probably not in the way that most people would think. By moving to Leeds he’s saved me countless ‘do you fancy a pint after work’ unnecessary trips to the pub. This has also consequently made me a better husband and father. So thank you Will from me, Clare and Evie.

Clare Wood
I’d better make this a good tribute… Clare is my long suffering wife and the mother of my child (the best child in the world by the way, although I am slightly biased). Not only do you tolerate that I disappear for endless hours running, playing cricket and socialising, you somehow manage to retain a liking for me too. I’m not entirely sure why at times, but I’m extremely grateful that you do.

Anonymous from Hong Kong
I know you put yourself down as an anonymous sponsor, but using my not too sophisticated detective skills I managed to work out who this person was (it followed shortly after an email conversation about London, how beautiful the picture of Evie on my sponsorship page is, and the marathon). So thank you for your kind generosity from 6,000 miles away. Maybe I’ll reveal who this anonymous donor is one day...

Moving away from sponsorship for a moment, there were two other acts of kindness / services rendered that deserve a special mention in the Hall of Fame this month.  

Adriana Lobo, Sophie Eke and Sarika Mehta (and the undersigned who contributed)
I am very fortunate in that I have a cracking team at work. Not only are they the best marketing team around (winners of the Best Marketing Team in the Conference Industry the past two years running I’ll have you know) but they make it a pleasure to come into work each day. And when they do things like they did for me this past week, it reminds me just how lucky I am to work with them.

Not only did they take the time to write an entry for me as Manager of The Year at the Incisive Media Awards, it goes without saying that they did such a great job of it that I won. I was truly touched by that, so thank you for taking the time to enter me and also to the people not mentioned (you know who you are) who contributed some kind quotes too.   

Marketing Team of the Year - for the 2nd year running!

Caroline Wilson at Think Physio, Hitchin

In my last article, I mentioned that my knee was giving me a huge amount of gip. Having left it to get better on its own accord for a few days, I tried it out again on Wednesday and Thursday last week. And whilst it didn’t hurt hurt, it was pretty obvious that something was wrong with it. So for once in my life, I listened to Clare’s sound advice and booked an appointment at Think Physio in Hitchin to try and get it sorted out.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, primarily because I couldn’t really describe what was wrong with my knee. However, after half an hour of questioning and testing, Caroline got to the root of the problem extremely quickly. Apparently my right leg is a bit of a weakling compared to my left leg. And whilst the pain is surfacing in my knee, it isn’t actually my knee that’s the problem.

After my jaunt in the Cotswolds at Christmas, my right calf hasn’t properly recovered and that, combined with a weak glute at the top of my leg, is making my knee unstable. After the prognosis, Caroline worked on my calf for 15 minutes and gave me a series of exercises to do to strengthen and loosen up the muscles.

Whilst my calf was hurting from the 15 minute battering it received, I couldn’t quite believe how much better my leg felt when I woke up on Sunday morning. I can only liken it to going to bed with a Morris Minor parked outside and waking up with a Merc in its place. There’s still a bit of soreness in the joint and I need to rest it, but I’m convinced it’s on the mend.  So it stands to reason that the last thing I should do is to say thank you to Caroline at Think Physio for providing an extremely professional service, and one which I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to others.

Update: The good news is that I managed to do 5 miles of relatively pain-free running on Wednesday morning. Whilst it was slow, the main thing was getting through it unscathed. If there’s no reaction in the morning, hopefully that will be the end of it and I can get back on track with a couple of weeks of slow runs before starting to train properly again.

And I’m telling you this because…
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2 

The injury curse, part one (hopefully of one)

Anyone who has ever played any contact sport, gone skiing or taken part in an endurance event like the marathon will know that the dreaded i word is never far from the edge of the tongue.

Over the years I’ve had my fair share of injuries. To those who know me well this will sound like the understatement of the decade and, if I was being entirely honest, I’ve probably taken a share for quite a few other people too.

I’ll regale you with some cracking sports injury stories later on but, for the time being and especially given my track record, my primary objective for this marathon crusade is to turn up at the start line a) injury free and b) having done the required training.

Taken as a statement on its own, this sounds so obvious that it should barely warrant a mention. Of course you want to be injury free. And of course you want to do the training. Unfortunately though for vast periods of a training schedule these two things are in direct opposition to each other, and that’s where the trouble starts…

To do all of the training – five days a week for at least sixteen weeks - it stands to reason that you need to be prepared to run when your body is aching and you’re not feeling 100%. For example, I’ve spent the first three weeks of my schedule running on sore calves, primarily because of my Cotswold jaunt at Christmas. I’ve managed to keep up with the plan though, as I’ve deemed calf pain as ‘manageable’. i.e. it hurts, but it doesn’t hurt to the point of making me stop - in fact, it’s probably good for a bit of mental toughness.  

This logic doesn’t work for everything though and unfortunately this conundrum has reared its ugly head for me a bit over the past week. For the first time ever I’ve been suffering with a bit of knee pain. It doesn’t feel like anything too serious, but at the same time it feels like it has the potential to be quite bad. It’s sore below the joint and is clicking quite a bit when it shouldn’t. It’s more irritating than anything else, but I’m conscious of it and it does hurt a bit.

Having not experienced this type of pain before, I don’t know whether I should try to man up and run through it or not. And when you’ve got something you’re not sure about, it leads to quite a few thoughts going through your mind about what you should do. Thoughts that I’d liken to Homer Simpson’s devil & angel sketch, with one character in his left ear telling him one thing, and another in the right telling him the exact opposite.

On the left I have the devil voice telling me I must do the training, that I’m missing key sessions, that it doesn’t really that hurt much, and that quite frankly, I’m sacrificing any chance of a good time by being such a wimp.

On the right, I’ve got the angel aka Captain Sensible. El Capitano is representing ‘turning up to the start line injury-free’ and telling me that running on the injury isn’t worth it and that a few days off will be much better in the long run.

So which one do you listen to? At the moment I’ve erred on the side of caution and decided to rest up for a few days – primarily because if I don’t and it gets worse, the prospect of having to put myself through 14 weeks of pain and hell just to get to the start line isn’t exactly appetising.

At the moment it’s all very noble taking the long-term view and I know that the voice of the devil will get stronger the closer we get to the race. But this does mean that in the short-term I’ll need to sacrifice a decent time in the Watford half-marathon in three weeks and take another beating by my brother for good measure. To be fair, the second part ought not to make any difference as I’ve had a good few of those down the years… hey ho.

Just in case you think I’m being far too sensible I’ll sign off by telling you that I haven’t ignored my inner devil completely. We went to our friends Sarah and James’ house for Sunday lunch and, rather than turn up ravenous after a 15 mile run, I went having done the square root of naff all instead. But rather than stay in training mode I thought I’d cheer myself up by taking full advantage of a massive and delicious Sunday roast, a huge portion of apple crumble cake and custard for pudding, and decided to wash it down with the best part of a bottle of red for good measure.

Not ideal for the training, but it was a great way to take my mind off of the pain in my knee…

And I’m telling you this because…
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2 

Facing your demons head on

For those of you who have been keeping up with this drivel, you’ll probably be aware of my ‘getting stranded in Arlesey’ story from before Christmas.

You’ll be pleased to know then, that I faced my demons head on last Sunday and decided to try the same route again. I should add that my primary motive was because it is pancake flat and I’m inherently lazy, but I thought I’d go ahead and see if I could do it all the same.

Unfortunately, as far as the entertainment value of this blog is concerned, I’m very happy to report that absolutely nothing of any note happened to me. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it’s probably the most laid back, relaxing long run I’ve ever done. The weather was mild, my heart rate was low (despite having the best part of a bottle of red the night before), and I felt in great nick all of the way. I think that’s what they call karma?

Unfortunately, I can’t say the interval training I decided to do in Hyde Park last Tuesday morning went anywhere near as smoothly though. It was extremely cold last week, and there was something of an arctic wind blowing as I tried to do four sets of mile-long intervals at 7am. That really wasn’t much fun, I can tell you.

The only thing that kept me going was that I spent a large part of it running backwards and forwards past about 50 ‘I must get fit in the New Year’ recruits to those Army Fitness classes (was it your brother Nodders?). I was in pain, but at least I wasn’t being coerced into doing thrusts, press ups and sit ups on the cold, soaking wet grass or being shouted at to try a bit harder during shuttle runs. Nor was I paying over my hard-earned for the pleasure. Each to their own I guess…

On the positive side – if there is a positive side to getting out of bed at 5.50 when it’s barely above freezing outside – there is a nice serenity about running through London’s parks early in the morning. Or there is when the army classes aren’t around. So, in the spirit of my blog I stopped mid-run in Regents Park this morning to take a quick snap…



Regents Park: red sky against the backdrop of the lake, with the BT Tower in the distance

Not that I’m expecting any of you to try this anytime soon, but there are benefits of both Regents & Hyde Park’s first thing in the morning. In Regents Park, you get the sun rising behind the BT Tower, with the geese on the lake, and a backdrop of the regency houses surrounding the park. Which is quite a nice way to break yourself into the day. As is spending five minutes whilst running trying to decipher which of the animals are making the early morning calls that are coming out of London Zoo.

Similarly, running past the Serpentine in Hyde Park, with the Shard and London Eye coming into view, whilst the sun rises and the Police & Royal horses are being ridden out on the dirt track alongside you isn’t too shabby either.


This one's not mine, but it's what happens each morning in Hyde Park

To sign off, I did warn you that you’d find out I am deathly boring by reading this. So there you have it - I’m old and I like views and horses I’m afraid. Bore off Wood…

And I’m telling you this because…

I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF). They help all sorts of vulnerable people in the county.

For example, last year they donated £1,000 to the local branch of the Phoenix Group for Deaf Children. The Phoenix Group began as a voluntary group of parents and professionals in 2004 to find ways of supporting families of deaf  children by developing and delivering workshops and training courses to tackle specific issues. An extremely noble cause, I’m sure you’ll agree.

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2 

Running in the Cotswolds: Not for the faint-hearted

The whole point of doing two half marathon’s in November was to get myself into some sort of fitness before starting my marathon training. A month’s worth of pre-Christmas boozing in London put paid to that, but I still thought I was in reasonable shape. Reasonable shape that was, until I went out running with my brother on Boxing Day morning.

I should say at this point that when we discussed a possible route on Christmas Day, I was led to believe it would be a leisurely jaunt along the cycle track from Stroud to Nailsworth and back again. That’s about 8 miles, but the cycle track is a disused railway line on the valley floor, so it is pancake flat. To me that sounded like an ideal way to break myself back in gently.

So you can imagine my surprise when, as we were heading out, Dan suggested that he knew another route that was 8 miles. And that it was much better than the boring monotony of the cycle track. I reluctantly agreed to go with it, and for those of you from Gloucestershire, you will feel my pain as I tell you the route we followed. We went straight up Rodborough Hill, over Rodborough Common, up Bear Hill, over to Amberley, down into Nailsworth and then back along the cycle track before finishing off with a little jog up Spillmans Pitch for good measure. I’ll give him one thing, he wasn’t lying - it was 7.99 miles exact. But it was a world apart from what I was expecting.

If you’re not from Gloucestershire, below is the view from the Fort at the top of Rodborough Common. Anyone trying to break into this one back in the day would either have been seen coming a mile off or so knackered from getting up the hill they wouldn’t have put up much of a fight.

The view from Rodborough Common

The reasonably large red-brick buildings on the left are roughly where we started. And you might be able to make out a church spire to the right of centre – that’s a pretty large church, and gives an indication of scale.  To do my bit for tourism in my home town, if you’ve got two minutes have a look at this site. It has some cracking photos of the the common, with free-roaming cattle, a picturesque fort and views out over the Severn. It is hard work getting up the hill, but once you're up top, it’s always worth it.

I thought I’d check my Garmin when I got back home to see how much climbing we’d done. It revealed that over the 8 miles I’d climbed a total of 836 feet. To put that into terms that Londoners will understand, it was the equivalent of running up the side of Centre Point. Twice.

As you can imagine, my calves were in bits. So jumping straight in the car to drive 200 miles to Coventry and back to watch Bristol City get beat in a lacklustre affair, probably didn’t help either.

The next morning I was insistent that I’d only run along the cycle track as previously planned. Dan wanted to run 8 miles, but I dug my heels in and refused to do more than 6. We decided to ‘give it a bit of a blast’ and agreed a goal time per mile. At this point I should say I’m trying not to give too much away about my estimated marathon time for fear of missing it by some distance and looking extremely stupid. So I’m going to refrain from giving timings where-ever possible. But let’s just say it was at the higher end of what I can do.

In the space of a six mile run, the only words I was able to utter to my brother were ‘we’re currently at x pace’ at about half a mile in (which obviously was thirty seconds a mile quicker than we’d agreed), and then ‘you go on and I’ll meet you at the end’ at the half-way point as I was dying. The good news is that I only finished about a minute behind him, and ended up averaging 32 seconds per mile quicker than I wanted. But I had to quickly decamp to the nearest park bench for ten minutes to regain my breath.

With the morning run done, I decided to give my calves even more of a bashing by spending the afternoon introducing my in-laws to Coaley Peak with its terrific views out over the River Severn. And then by dropping the mile down (and back up) the rough woodland track to Woodchester Mansion, a massive stone house that was never finished & now regularly hosts ghost nights (pics below). You might have seen it in the news recently, as apparently there is a dangerous big cat on the loose in there, but I can confirm that we didn't see it if there is!

The view from Coaley Peak

Woodchester Mansion

Or Woodchester Mansion, as pictured by the Stroud News after the wild cat story...

To finish the day in style, we had a lovely night out drinking copious amounts of Oranjeboom with my friends and better halves from back home. And when my brother turned up, he informed me he’d gone back in the afternoon and done the same six mile run again, only this time he’d done it 3 minutes quicker! These are the reasons I’ll never beat him…

I finished the week with two more lovely country runs, but these were flown solo. They involved quite a bit of climbing, but at my own pace as I took in the fields and country lanes around Chalford, Eastcombe, Bussage, France Lynch and Bournes Green. All in all, I had a cracking week in the country with mine and Clare’s families, even if the running nearly killed me. But on the plus side, it has definitely given me the feel that I’m back on track.

And I’m telling you this because…
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2 

 

December - the month in review

As predicted last month, December was a bit horrific. I was supposed to be doing four training sessions per week but ended up averaging four sessions of a more enjoyable kind instead. A mixture of Christmas parties, an overseas event, catch up drinks with friends and leaving do’s made December very bad from a marathon point of view. But extremely enjoyable on all other levels.

Anyway, without further ado, here are a few stats about my past month running…

Miles run in the last month = 73

Just the 44 miles down on last month then. Enough said really…

Time spent running = 9 hours and 41 minutes

Bizarrely enough, I was only four hours down on training time from last month. Hmmm… so I was 44 miles down and only four hours down on training time. By my calculations, 44 miles in 4 hours translates to a 2hr 20 marathon time. Maybe the Olympics aren’t out of reach? Either that or the beer has been slowing me down a bit.

Pre-6am starts in the name of running = 1

Do I need to rename the blog? Not so much early riser as total layabout.

In my defence, running with a hangover is no fun at all, so I did switch a few of my runs. And there was no way I was getting up that early whilst on holiday. 

Night’s out sacrificed = 0
As predicted, I’ve had way too many night’s out this month – I don’t think I’ve sacrificed a single one. In fact, I’m pretty sure that a doctor giving my liver the once over would put me closer to ‘alcoholic’ than ‘athlete in marathon training’.

Never mind, hopefully it’s nothing that isn’t salvageable by some heavy training and a few quiet weeks off of the booze in January.

Some of the things I’ve learnt this month:

- It pays to take at least one bank note and probably your phone with you on a long run, even if they are a pain to carry

- Contrary to popular belief, not all men are infatuated with maps. But from now on I will be.

- Running in the Cotswolds with my brother is masochistic (I’ll tell you about this in a future post)    

- Getting my sponsorship page up early has paid dividends as the journey to my £1,500 goal started before 2011 was out. Step forward David Morton, the first person to sponsor me. To thank you for your kindness, I thought I’d put up a picture of us sharing a drink (I’m wearing my marathon top, so technically it counts as training…)

And I’m telling you this because…

I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If, like David, you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2